Yes, tried a 9 and a 9.5… and I’ll be sizing up to a 10 too. Usually 8.5-9. The Mavic sizing chart suggested an 8 by my foot length…!

I don’t understand why people don’t repair innertubes

I do, and I’m sure I’m not alone…

I’ve never had an issue with Decathlon tubes, either in use or with their price: http://www.decathlon.co.uk/26×175-21-schraeder-x2-bike-inner-tubes-id_3314575.html

As for patches and glue, it’s gotta be TipTop every time for me. Carry a small tube of Tescos glue with me for emergencies, but always TipTop patches. Big tube of their glue at home has lasted me years.

Oh, and how are they on width?

Even more confusingly, the official Mavic sizing chart suggests that a size 8/42 would be 2mm larger than my larger foot, when I’m usually in an 8.5-9 or 43-ish.

Any more for any more?

Download your mapping onto your phone and then put it into Airplane mode while using it for navigation, it will use absolutely scads less battery that way. Only turn on comms or Wifi if you need to. Use an external USB battery pack to recharge overnight on multi-day trips, or just keep the internal battery topped up all the time.

Cartridge bearings in components that came with a decent amount of high-quality grease as standard, instead of the photocopier-grade vaseline you get in most of them.

8-speed 13-36 (or bigger) cassette.

I also second the calls for 8/9-speed compatible clutch mechs, and bottom brackets that are as reliable as they used to be (but see the top of the post for further details).

@Spud – not considering a tailgate bike rack?

@Spud – what have you got? Linky click to advert?

Personally, I treat a hire car like I’d treat my own car… but I take your point.

Any such scheme that I would sign up to (such as https://carclub.easycar.com/) would have to have driver insurance handled as part of the transaction.

My biggest worry is mechanical damage, e.g. what happens if they burn your clutch out? They have a ‘reputation’ system similar to eBay feedback, but a mechanical issue might not be immediately apparent…

Said it before and I’ll say it again: if bearings are failing, check how much and what grease they have in them, as most cartridge bearings are more suited to photocopiers than MTBs when it comes to grease.

They may be failing for other reasons, but that would be the first thing I’d check.

considering enduro bearings are supposed to be ‘bike specific’ ( aren’t they? ), they don’t put a lot of grease in them. it’s almost like they’re manufactured by a generic factor…

Two things you need to bear in mind about most ‘sealed’ bearings on bikes:

1) They’re NOT sealed. No other industry calls them ‘sealed’ bearings, they correctly call them cartridge bearings.

2) For any bearing to run reliably for a long period, there needs to be a sufficient amount of suitable and uncontaminated grease in there. Almost all cartridge bearings used in bike manufacture contain a very small amount of unsuitable grease which quickly gets contaminated through the bearing ‘seals’.

They ARE the elephant in the room of the bike industry, given the amount of grief they cause.

All that you need to do to protect almost any cartridge bearing from wear and malfunction in the longer term is to CAREFULLY whip the seals off and fill them with a decent waterproof grease, and repeat annually (or more often if you really hammer your equipment or run it in very wet conditions). Carefully replace the seals and all should be well. I use Phil Woods waterproof grease.

The above may or may not apply to ceramic cartridge bearings, I’ve never used them.

@trail_rat – shrug

We need six-seven seats several times a year, an I like the option of having the bigger boot my sliding the bench seat forward. In any case, we didn’t buy new, though we may have over-paid a bit in order to secure what we wanted.

@nosedive – how many seats do you need?

Caravelle SWB does seven max, LWB nine max.

We have a SWB Caravelle. Take out two seats and slide the bench forward and you can get in five bodies and five bikes (front wheels off). Fold the bench seat flat, and add the extension board and a thin Ikea mattress or memory foam topper and you have a double bed in the back.

You can adapt a commercial tranny to your heart’s content, but the Caravelle is comfortable, roomy and versatile as standard.

@Spud – you can take the T5 Caravelle bench seat out, but easier to take the captain’s seats out and slide the bench forward. You can then do five folks with five bikes in the back with front wheels off.

@rooney – T4 or T5? Seems a bit cheap to be honest, what’s the condition / service history like?

@robinlaidlaw – that makes perfect sense, ta #gedditnow

i’ll take the transit, thanks

Of those two, I’d agree. But I’d take a T5 over either of them…

I have a bivvy bag, and I have lightweight (ish, for the amount of money I want to spend) 1 man tent. Was considering getting a tarp or going for one of those above

I’d be looking for a Saunders Jetpacker / Jetpacker Plus on eBay. They usually go for about £80, and are a true 1-2 man tent @ 1.25kg.

You’ll still be disappointed in that case. I noticed my 130 lwb is about 2mpg better after a dpf delete and remap 4 years ago. Most of that is probably because you don’t HAVE to work it as hard, although for the 1st few drives after the map you WILL!

Hmmm… ours is a 174BHP, so was hoping to get better than the ~32 we seem to get on the motorway (admittedly at around 75…). I’ve seen reports of more like 38 after a re-map.

Only just found the thread. Utterly love our 56 plate Caravelle. 5 or 7 seats, bags of room in the back in 5-seat mode – can get five bikes in easily with front wheels off. Took it camping last summer with all seven seats in (second week in villa with my parents) and there was bags of room with the bench seat folded flat, even with riding kit and a huge family tent.

A little disappointed with the fuel consumption, though it’s about the same around town as the Mazda 5 it replaced. To that end we’re having it re-mapped by Pendle Performance at the weekend as we should get around a 10% improvement in efficiency for those long French motorway trips…

Gah… only got two days there before we head down for a week in the Alpes Maritimes. On the way down, I’ll be riding down from the highest point ever visited by the TdF, mind…

@mixmaster – We will be there July 22-23. First day will be the easy day with my wife, then open to suggestions. Will have transport and some friends staying in Bourg, so lots of options.

Thanks folks, accommodation booked in Tignes :-)

Thumbshifters
Square taper BBs
Decent grease in whatever bearing(*)
Quick-link chains
8-speed (if not single)
Malt loaf or Sainsburys granola slices
Cable-operated discs

(*)One of my biggest bugbears with ‘sealed’ (they aren’t – they’re ‘cartridge’ bearings in any other industry) bearings is the woeful amount of vaseline-type grease they tend to come with as standard. Pop the seals and get something decent in there, you’ll thank me in the long run.

But, why on earth would you want to pollute your ‘pure’ biking time with a electrically assisted bike?

Given that petrol or lift assisted uplift is now a given on/at many MTB excursions and trail centres both in the UK and abroad, I don’t understand the consternation at electric bikes.

Think of it as a more energy-efficient form of uplift. If you don’t do/want/get uplift, then fair enough. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool old school XC rider who’s always preferred to earn his descents, and now I’m the wrong side of 40, I can see that the day will come when I will very much appreciate a little assistance to keep me carry on riding into my twilight years.

For something in between this and the Passportes du Soleil route, you could do worse than the Chemins du Soleil route:

http://www.grande-traversee-alpes.com/en/chemins-du-soleil

@sangobegger – know what you mean. I am in France for three weeks in the summer with my wife… might get in five days’ riding if I’m lucky. Better than nothing I guess…

@ChrisE – I sent you an email to the last address I had for you (from the bikepacking.net forums). Did you get it? Maybe check your spam folders for something from mjg……(at)gmail(dot)com.

Great stuff as ever ChrisE, I have sent you an email requesting the details. A couple of questions which I’m sure others would also appreciate being answered:

1) You largely seem to just wing it and book accommodation via Tourist Information at the end of the day… does this generally work okay in the Alps?

2) Where do you research to find out which lifts are open when?

MTB B&B: http://www.oldskool-mtb.co.uk/

If you’re flying and want excellent trails with a high probability of better weather than the UK, you could do a lot worse than the Alpes Maritimes. Get in touch with Ash @ Trans-Provence or Greg @ 1001Sentiers for guiding options.

I do sweat a lot, yes (see original post). Don’t mind not being completely dry so long as I’m not cold AND wet.

I have an eVent jacket, which I don’t wash very often and haven’t found to be very breathable lately, which is why I’m looking for a replacement. Perhaps I should just be washing it more often?

I’ve never found that its water repellency came back after a warm iron, so I treated it by soaking in TX Direct. Is this likely to have wrecked the eVent’s breathability?

Do Paramo do something which is the equivalent of just a waterproof shell layer?

Any more ideas?

That looks very like an UltimateAddons soft case:

http://www.play.com/Mobiles/Mobile/4-/40892177/744371764/-/ListingDetails.html

I have one of their rugged cases for my Galaxy S3, which I rate very highly other than one aspect.

I use the compatible charger cable with an external USB battery, and the strain relief on the power plug is non-existent. The lead broke on my second ride using it. I got a replacement and beefed up the strain relief and waterproofing of the plug using Sugru.

What’s so good about Paramo jackets? Is it the Nikwax Analogy fabric or some other factor?

I currently have a Rab eVent jacket, and no longer find it very breathable. It perhaps used to be, so perhaps I haven’t washed it properly and it’s lost its breathability?

This may also be of interest: http://www.decathlon.co.uk/en/product/~product_id=8294081